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boxed macaroni and cheese is delicious
as is but I'm trying three different
ways to make it taste even better so for
the first method I turned to my
followers on Instagram I posted on my
instagram story what is your favorite
way of dressing up box macaroni and
cheese waited 24 hours and sifted
through the responses which were all
great but one of them piqued my interest
instead of using water to boil the
noodles somebody suggested to use milk
instead right now I am lucky enough to
have milk in my fridge it seems very
simple but I feel like it would make the
noodles creamier because the cheese
powder is already so grainy so hopefully
boiling it in milk will make it more
rich so I'm gonna try that
so for method 1 we have just three
ingredients really macaroni and cheese
the milk and some butter in that little
green box it says to prepare with less
fat we are in quarantine I'm not
concerned of fat free right now so let's
kind of just throw caution to the wind
but I mean this milk is 2% so I guess
we're not completely going there I know
going in that milk boils pretty quickly
so I'm going to keep an eye out on this
okay so it's not over boiling and it's
been 2 seconds so I am going to fix
myself a drink ok so I'm back it looks
like it's about to start boiling so no
no no
no no remember when I said so I'm going
to keep an eye out on this and then it
would be really difficult to clean up
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this better be worth it y'all so it's
side seven to eight minutes so I will
start at 7 and just taste them we're
just gonna give it a little stir
maybe the milk in this thing well I
don't know loosen up the powders she's a
little bit more than water I don't know
I'm just I'm just guessing at this point
so from the Instagram submission that I
got it said to add in heavy cream as
well so I actually think I have a little
in my fridge let me check so um what is
what is this okay so now I'm gonna add
in this heavy cream just a little splash
yeah a little splash okay it seems like
it'll loosen things up a bit
oh but you know that it's good macaroni
and cheese when it sounds like this all
right I'm gonna plate and then I'll see
you in a bit
I picked my second method by searching
the internet and my mission was
basically to just find the most creative
out-of-the-box way that I can find but
something that I can still do with
relative ease in my kitchen what did I
do wrong the one that I decided to pick
was fried macaroni and cheese balls I
mean you see this in restaurants and to
take a boxed macaroni cheese and just do
a simple tweaking and make it into a
glorious appetizer it sounds great to me
I looked at a bunch of recipes but
decided to go with damn delicious for
this one because I've been following
that recipe blowing for a while now and
tone those recipes from what I've tried
have always been knockouts for the
recipe it calls for full need or
store-bought mac and cheese and I'll
just be preparing this to the box
instructions they have it but it's up
there and it's spiral
now that the macaroni and cheese is done
I am going to chill it before I fry it
then there is because for panko
breadcrumbs 2 eggs and some chives
cosmare stuck in quarantine I was
thinking to myself what if I just make
the breadcrumbs from scratch just
because I have the time so for that I'm
going to be using some leftover bread
that I have I'm just going to kind of
eyeball this and cut it into little
cubes I don't know what the difference
is between bread crumbs and panko bread
crumbs I feel like I should know the
answer to this but I do not now that I
have chopped up all of my bread into
these little cubes I'm just going to
blend them in a food processor that
looks good
yeah that smells like it's definitely
ready it's been three hours now and the
boxed macaroni and cheese should have
been chilled all the way through all
right let's start assembling these balls
okay so that's that's one ball from the
recipe just said to chill for a few
hours and then form it into balls but
like right now the noodles are like kind
of like falling apart as I'm going and
then put in the milk and noodle down and
then the breadcrumbs how is it falling
apart like this what did I do wrong
I'm going to just try to put some flour
in with the other ones to see if that
works
okay let's try this one
not disintegrating okay now okay we have
we have no separation which is good I'm
kind of proud of myself for finding a
makeshift resolution to this I don't
know it's actually gonna pay off in the
end for the last two I kind of want to
take the homemade breadcrumbs aside and
try with the store-bought one this is
the rustic different basically this one
is the closest thing to the actual
recipe
it's going in it's our third and final
method I reached out to chef David
Elkins from Ernie's cheese bar in New
York City
obviously Murray's brick-and-mortar
stores are closed at the moment but
Murray's usually is like a one-stop shop
for all things cheese they sell cheese
over the counter I mean they have cheese
related foods and they even have an
extensive mac and cheese menu so I
decided to hop on a Skype call with Chef
David and see what he recommends me
doing what are your thoughts about box
mac and cheese it's acceptable
especially in times like these I mean if
you want the taste of comfort food
really quick the shelf-stable I think
it's I think it's a good option so now
that I've tried the two methods that I
told you about how would you make it
there's always the option to add
ingredients in and I my mind goes to a
version of our signature mac and cheese
that we offered the restaurant our
French onion mac which uses camel has
onion and bacon lardons so you can get
all of those ingredients including the
three cheese's that we use which is
Murray's cave aged beer
French for Clint and a stock in the
whole cheddar those are all available on
our website at Murray she's calm we're
still shipping nationwide any melted
cheese is good cheese you can mix
whatever into pasta and heat it up and
it's going to grape but if you prepared
your box stovetop mac and cheese
according to directions then you could
caramelize some sweet onions which takes
about 45 minutes to an hour if you do it
right I have the time okay it's super
simple to do you just have a little
butter in a pan let it go low and slow
for a long time so it's a deep brown
it's been about 20
so it's been about 20 minutes now and
the onions are still cooking
caramelizing I'm bored I'm bored okay so
it has been about an hour and 20 minutes
since I started caramelizing the onions
and they are brown now and then I would
dice up some like slab thick cut slab
bacon if you have it maybe 1/4 inch dice
and just throw that in the oven 350 for
like 12 15 minutes you can add those
ingredients into your pot of mac and
cheese then like put it in a casserole
what kind of cheesy should I put on top
before it goes into the oven I think
just a great general guideline is a
cheddar cheese to add kind of tangy
Nisour acidity but she's that melts
really well in this case for klett but
if you don't have a plant you can also
use something like tellegio or even a
fontina and then the flavorful nutty
cheese like a career or comte something
like that do you think though that like
the three cheese's that you kind of
curated to make this at home is going to
complement or like mask that cheese
powder they're definitely gonna mask it
if he doesn't know if you use enough and
with when it comes to like a ratio
should I just eyeball it or how much do
I know to put in we use a 1 to 1 to 1 so
equal parts of all the cheese's then you
should be good to go
that's like a lot of cheese Jesus I
don't know there's so much and it's
giving me anxiety but we're just gonna
choose not to think about that
- planned literally nothing so I would
take that shredded cheese and kind of
put it on top and then they maybe broil
it for like five or six minutes until
it's like bubbly and brown I just
realized um since I'm boiling it at the
end or should I put that rack to the
closest to the top of the oven or before
I do that later I'm just gonna go with
I'll do it now you just don't want to
like you don't want to keep it in the
oven too long for that too high up he
because then the cheese is gonna start
to break
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so visually it looks very similar to
regular Cossacks I mean cheese I don't
find any like distinguishing smell or
textural comparison that like convinces
me that this will be like life-changing
but see oh that's very surprising okay
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it definitely adds a subtle sweetness so
nuttiness because you are boiling in it
that milk
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does it taste like macaroni and cheese
no does it taste like a restaurant
version of a macaroni and cheese ball
also no it literally just tastes like
bland noodles fried with panko on top
that caramelized onion is everything
it's still got that orange you know hue
from the box macaroni and cheese hmm but
it does not taste like box macaroni and
cheese the three cheese's really really
make the macaroni and cheese have like
so much more of a complex flavor
obviously it's kind of like funky and
pungent I want to say that the star is
the caramelized onion
Wow I want to put caramelized onions on
everything hi guys I decided to come
back and tell you my final thoughts on
the three methods that I tried I don't
know of all three I feel like method 1
was the best method 3 is the best recipe
that could stand on its own and method 2
is a great base foundation for fried
macaroni and cheese but method 1
definitely was the one that completely
transformed the dish in such a simple
way let me know what pantry item I
should try next and please if anyone has
recommendations on how to get this
horrid milk stain off of my stove I am
all ears
alright bye
it did not work
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